


His Name Was Dave

by aubrey_writes



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 10:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18386270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aubrey_writes/pseuds/aubrey_writes
Summary: "Well, Dave must have been a very special person to put up with all your weird ass shit.""Yeah. Yeah, he was.."





	His Name Was Dave

“He was kind…”

_Dave was more than kind. Kind couldn’t even begin to describe all that Dave was. Klaus actually found himself thinking that a new word should be invented to describe someone who saw the good in people while fighting in the shit every day of his life._

_He was kind to the people that were supposed to be their enemies. All of them knew that the people in the towns were keeping information from them, hiding the Vietcong and keeping their secrets that allowed for them to walk from place to place without getting their legs blown off. Yet Dave saw them all as people. He was kind to them the way that he was kind to his own men, offering them extra food and water, asking them how their day was, trying to communicate even though those who knew English were few and far between. The French that he had learned in high school would sometimes make its way out, making the children laugh and the adults shake their heads. But they appreciated it. Klaus could tell. They loved having him around. It was a nice change in pace from the type of people that they usually saw._

_But he was also kind to Klaus. Most of the men looked at him with suspicion in their eyes, if they even bothered to look at him at all, but Dave accepted him. From the moment that Klaus landed in that tent, Dave sought him out, wanting to make him feel welcome. Klaus had an idea that this was the way that he treated every new member of their troop, and for some reason, not being special didn’t bother him. It just made him realize the type of man that Dave really was. The way that he comforted him through his nightmares, would ask but not pry about his past, would hold him when the voices got to be too much, and would turn a blind eye when he had to take something to make living in Vietnam bearable. His kindness showed when he asked him about himself, wanted to get to know him, even though Klaus was a complete and utter mess. It showed in the tone of his voice, in the sound of his laughter, in the softness of his eyes._

“And strong..”

_His kindness didn’t make him weak, though. A lot of men said that they had to become hard in order to survive. Said that if they let themselves feel, they would never be able to do what it took to get out of there with a sound mind._

_Not Dave, though._

_He cared about people, but he would always do what it took to save the lives of his men. He was strong on the front lines, putting himself in danger first to make sure that it was safe for the other men to follow. He would always be the first one to walk the paths lined with mines, never showing the fear on his face. The memories of men lost didn’t get to him, not in the moments that it truly mattered. His fear of death was always an afterthought in those moments. What mattered to him most was getting everyone out of situations alive, and if that meant risking his own life to do it, there would never be a second thought in his mind._

_He was strong in his body, too. It was the first thing that Klaus had noticed when he had shown up, eyes falling on a body built of pure muscle. It wasn’t an easy feat to stay that toned while fighting. Sure, the workload was a lot, and Klaus himself had put on a lot of muscle while fighting, but he was also constantly sick. They never had enough to eat, or drink, just enough to keep them sustained until the next day. And yet Dave looked like a Greek god, something that never failed to surprise him. Even when his hands traced over those muscles, night after night, when they were alone together, he couldn’t get over it._

_Dave would make fun of him, ask him if he was jealous, but Klaus didn’t mind it. Instead, he’d joke about Dave being able to pick him up and carry him out of the fray if he really needed it, like a damsel in distress. That image never failed to make them both laugh._

“And vulnerable..”

_In all of their moments together, this was when Dave was the strongest._

_When they were sitting in the dark, quietly, and Dave would open up for him._

_Klaus would ask a simple question, mention that he never really spoke about his family life, and Dave would give him more than he could have ever asked for. He would talk about his trauma, about being drafted, about his big dreams for his life and career, and how they all got shifted out of view as soon as he had gotten that letter. He would talk about having to hide being gay, about how he loved his parents, but he knew that if they ever found out, he would be disowned, or worse. He would talk about how he had never been in love before, because he had never been given the chance. The fear of someone finding out had kept him in the shadows, had made him force himself to fake relationships with people he never felt any sort of attraction for._

_He told Klaus all of this and more, willingly, without fear of what Klaus would think of him. He would pour his heart out to him, because he trusted him. Because he had no fear of Klaus writing him off. Because he had seen those bits of Klaus as well._

_He would talk about their future together. He wasn’t afraid of scaring Klaus off by talking about what they would do after the war. It wasn’t a question of whether or not they would stay together once they both got out. The answer was simple: of course they would._

_He talked about their house somewhere rural, away from the rest of the world. He talked about their dog that they would get, probably a golden retriever, something generic, and about the picket fence out front, and about how he would read to Klaus until he fell asleep, and hold him in his arms when the nightmares would come back. He talked about how even if they couldn’t get married, it didn’t matter. They would still wear rings, and be somewhere where they had no fear of someone finding out about them._  
_He gave him his dog tags as a promise._

_He told him he loved him._

“And beautiful..”

_And that was it, wasn’t it? Dave was just.. Beautiful. Out of anything that Klaus could have ever said to describe him, beautiful was the only word that did him justice._

_He was beautiful in the way that he danced, hunched over with jerky movements, not caring that he looked like a total idiot, just feeling the music as it moved through his body._

_He was beautiful in the way that he would recite poetry to Klaus as he tried to sleep, above the noise of the bombs dropping, words whispered softly in his ear, filling his world with nothing but softness._

_He was beautiful when he took a shot, face flushed, hair tousled with a grin spread from ear to ear, looking at Klaus as if he had hung the moon, as if nothing could ever top the moments that they spent together, the brief moments they had when they weren’t buried in trenches._

_He was beautiful in the moments after they kissed, his eyes still closed as if he had to take a moment to soak everything in, a small smile twitching at the sides of his lips, because of course, Dave never stopped smiling, he always found something to smile about in any moment. Normally that reason was Klaus._

_He was beautiful when he told him that he loved him, quiet and scared for the first time, his hand shaking where they were clenched around Klaus’, but meeting his eyes anyway, wanting Klaus to know that he meant it, even if he was terrified that he could feel anything this deeply, and he was beautiful when Klaus said it back, words punched out of him like he was shocked by it, both of them grinning like total idiots._

_And he was beautiful, so beautiful as he laid there, gunfire lighting up his face in strange intervals, crimson painted across his chest and on Klaus’ own hands. He was so beautiful, staring up at Klaus with his dying breaths, and all he wanted was just one more chance, to go back and change it all, to make things right, so he could just hold him, call him beautiful one last time._

“...beautiful.”


End file.
